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In this post I will be discussing elements of Mad Men's Season 4 opener. So if you are not yet caught up with our collective cultural zeitgeist you should probably move on.

Now that we have lost those troglodytes let's talk about this latest episode, shall we?

The episode opens with a journalist from Advertising Age asking Don the question that defines the series, "Who is Don Draper?". Of course he doesn't actually give an answer, because if there ever really was an answer to that question Don would probably be the last to know.

I will gloss over all the other great stuff that happens during the episode (the new office, a staged ham fight, Thanksgiving Dinner from hell, and Don's downward spiral into Slap Sex!) so we can talk about the ending. Don confronts Betty and Henry Francis about the house and his future with the kids. Things get tense but you get the feeling that Don is holding back a bit. Once back at the office (did you see those couches in Reception!), Don pitches his "daring" bikini ad campaign to the stuff-shirt prudes from Jantzens. When they don't buy into his idea Don attacks them with both barrels. He throws them out of the office with all the rage that he meant to direct at Betty and Henry. The episode ends with another interview, this time it is a reporter from the Wall Street Journal that wants to know who exactly is the real Don Draper. Don goes into full Public Relations mode and feeds the reporter exactly what he wants.

Then, as always happens on Mad Men, the song during the closing credits not only encapsulates the episode but gives us a possible glimpse into the future. It also gives us a possible to answer to that big question, 'Who is Don Draper?". It is the The Nashville Teens' version of Tobacco Road:

I was born in a trunk.

Mama died and my daddy got drunk.

Left me here to die alone

in the middle of Tobacco Road.

Growin' up rusty shack,

all I had was hangin' on my back.

Only you know how I loathe

this place called Tobacco Road.

But it's home, the only life I ever known.

Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.

Gonna leave, get a job

with the help and the grace from above.

Save some money, get rich and old,

bring it back to Tobacco Road.

But it's home, the only life I ever known.

Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.

Bring that dynamite and a crane,

blow it up, start all over again.

Build a town, be proud to show.

Gives the name Tobacco Road

Considering we also learn this episode that with the loss of the Jai Alai account Lucky Strike now represents 70% of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's business, Tobacco Road perhaps portends that Don will "bring that dynamite and a crane" to the company he just started. The act of smoking a cigarette is a perfect metaphor for Don Draper...nothing looks cooler than self-destruction.